Anyone who has seen the movie Karate Kid will remember the iconic 'crane' kick that Mr Miyagi teaches his protégé Daniel.

The one-legged balancing move followed by speedy footwork is a milestone in Daniel's training and later helps him win a karate tournament against the odds.

Well now researchers have showcased the karate skills of the Atlas robot - a giant humanoid robot warrior that walks on two legs.

Atlas has been developed by Google-owned Boston Dynamics and programmed by the team at the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition to carry out the Karate Kid move.

He stands on a stack of breeze blocks for the stunt, which involves balancing on one leg while lifting the other.

As it stands, Atlas doesn't perform the final kicking part of the Crane move, but it's only a matter of time before we have to deal with fearsome ninja robots and we'll wish we’d just stuck with showing them the catching-mosquitos-with-chopsticks move instead.